Townsville's public hospital under pressure as 106 staff test positive to COVID-19.
"The outbreak is slowing down operations in Townsville University Hospital's (TUH) emergency department and some elective surgeries have been suspended."
Tropical Cyclone #Jasper is expected to rapidly intensify over the next day or so, with winds reaching 215 km/h by Friday.
After Friday, Jasper is forecast to steadily weaken. The location and severity of any possible impacts for #Queensland are quite uncertain at this time.
#JFP Justice For #Palestine noted that this year, for the first time in modern history, Christian leaders in #Bethlehem have cancelled #Christmas events. Celebrating while millions suffer and grieve in #Gaza is not appropriate, they said.
View from my window in the Bunya Mountains right now. The flame trees are gorgeous at the moment. And look at those young Bunyas at the bottom of the photo! They're on our land, and are showing lots of new foliages after the recent rain
Ever since thieves broke into Alyce Nelligan's house south of Toowoomba, the disability advocate has struggled to be at home on her own.
The Cambooya resident, who lives with the rare muscle disease minicore myopathy, woke one night in May to hear her car being stolen while her husband and children slept.
"The project, as proposed, would sit among the top 100 greenhouse gas emission sources in Australia," the notice said.
"Based on Queensland's 2019 total greenhouse gas emissions, the project would increase Queensland's emissions output by approximately 5.73 per cent.
"The project is expected to impede Queensland's achievement of its renewable energy targets of 50 per cent by 2030 and 70 per cent by 2032, and the national and Queensland commitments to achieve net zero emissions by 2050."
This is the kind of thinking we need, both here in Australia and worldwide.
We need to stop thinking about short-term financial gain and start thinking aboit the long-term effects of fossil fuel extraction and use.
Well done on this decision. Now the Planning Minister needs to back it and refuse to overturn it, and the Land and Environment Court needs to uphold it.
Queensland are heading in the right direction. Now, if only the Federal Government would make similar decisions.
Today in Traveller, in print in The Sunday Age (Melbourne) and the Sun-Herald (Sydney) - myself and a bunch of colleagues write about our best travel moments of 2023.
(Mine involve food in Lisbon and Lyon, a fast train in Italy, and a scenic slow train in Queensland.)
For Traveller, a bunch of travel writers describe their top travel moments of 2023. They're arranged by region, so click here and scroll down to find my three from Europe - involving Lisbon cod, a Lyon bistro, and a very fast Italian train:
7 years of rooftop PV, 6.5kW panels, 5kW inverter: 64,610 kWh of electricity produced, worth A$3,230 at a price I sell it to the grid (5c), or A$15,506 at a price I buy it from the grid (24c). 1 kWh of electricity produced in Queensland, mostly by burning coal, emits 0.80kg (2021-22) of CO2-e, so my rooftop installation so far prevented emission of perhaps 51.7 tons of CO2-e (minus GHG emitted to make the inverter and panels).
Enough! How many big expensive stations do we need? How high does Penn Station's ceiling need to be? How much natural light? Why aren't we spending this money on through-running and electrification?
RT @ndhapple Massive engineering report prepared when Pat Foye ran the MTA reveals the Penn Station overhaul and privatization plan pitched by the former transit honcho and his new employer, a Italian transport conglomerate, would cost $2b+ more than he’s claimed:
@capntransit@ndhapple - my favourite example of wasting public money is the Queensland Train Manufacturing Program, a A$9.5 billion project to build in Queensland a train factory that will assemble 65 pretty much standard EMUs for Queensland Railways. Any sane government would do a tender and just buy 65 Stadler FLIRT, or whatever, with servicing, for about A$1.4 billion.
There were 94,535 general and strip-searches prompted by the dogs but 70,913 or nearly 75% of these searches yielded no illicit drugs. The force maintains the dogs are “very effective”.
That's nice, the publishers of Air Niugini's in-flight mag sent me a copy of the latest issue, with my piece about the Spirit of Queensland train in it.
If you'd like to read the story, step onto an Air Niugini flight or follow this link :)
"Data from geostationary satellites have revolutionised #FireSpotting, shifting from six-hourly updates to every ten minutes.
These data and historic data, could and should be made easily available to non-specialists
If we have better public data sets, we can also more quickly shut down talking points from #ClimateDeniers, who might claim “there’s nothing new – #Queensland has always burned”."